Custom Linux image for the CubieBoard

I've received a CubieBoard (from Miniand) and I've created a custom firmware image for it.
This is aimed at embedded uses, and so is a fairly minimal server install. It's currently based on Linaro 13.01, which is based on ubuntu Server.

I've stripped it back to a minimal setup that boots up and DHCPs off the ethernet port with an ssh server running. There's a console provided on serial and via the HDMI port.
The kernel is based on the sunxi-3.4 branch, with loads of networking, wireless, and usb device support, and I'm working on the GPIO and SPI interfaces currently.
I'll also add 3D accelerated framebuffer support soon.

If you're interested, follow this forum post where I'll be discussing it and providing updates:
https://www.miniand.com/forums/forums/development--5/topics/linaro-ubuntu-custom-server-images-armhf

Note that I'm pretty sure this image should work on the Hackberry A10 and similar devices as well, with minimal effort.

Comparing performance of Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone

Synopsis: ARM v6 CPUs (such as the Raspberry Pi) are significantly slower than ARMv7 CPUs (such as in the BeagleBone) at the same clock speed, at least when running Debian (armhf) on them.


I know it's a rather naive benchmark, but I tried running Perl and Scala programs to find all the prime numbers under 100,000 on both the Raspberry Pi and the BeagleBone.

They're both 700 MHz ARM CPUs, but the Raspberry runs on the older v6 spec CPU.

Surprisingly, this seems to make a huge difference to performance.


Perl primes to 100k:

• My desktop (3GHz i7) - 3.3 seconds
• BeagleBone (720 MHz ARMv7)- 68 seconds
• Raspberry Pi (700 MHz ARMv6) - 125 seconds

I thought I'd try it quickly in Scala, but it seems the JVM isn't very well optimised on ARM yet. I cancelled the tests after five minutes, and re-ran them only calculating up to 10k.

Scala primes to 10k:

• Desktop - 0.33 s
• Beagle - 19 s (zero) / 34 s (jamvm)
• Raspberry - 58 s (jamvm) / 79 s (zero)

It's curious to note that the best JVM varies between the architectures; Zero was a lot faster than JamVM on the Beagle, but it was a lot slower on Raspberry Pi. (At least for this naive test)
Zero is the default on both, at least on Debian.

v4 Linaro armhf image for mk802

Just a quick post - I've updated my Linaro/ALIP/armhf image for the MK802 device.

Compared to the first version, this one is based on Linaro 12.07 instead of 12.06; has a Mali X11 driver; has various filesystem optimisations that improve performance a bit; has more drivers for stuff compiled into the kernel.

Compared to the second and third versions, it has more drivers for stuff, and some X11 problems were fixed.

Download from: http://dl.miniand.com/toby_corkindale/linaro-alip-armhf-t4.7z

Working Mali X11 driver on MK802 (A10)

I've managed to get the Mali X11 driver working on my AllWinner A10 MK802 device in Linux.

I'm using Linaro's 12.06 armhf build as a base image, and then using the linux-allwinner kernel sources, and some info from Rhombus Tech, combined with a bit of hacking around myself.

I've put the details here: https://www.miniand.com/forums/forums/2/topics/61#post-1251

They're a bit long-winded at the moment, but once I've evened things out, I'll make a fresh SD card image.

MK802 image with armhf Linaro 12.06 and custom kernel

Just a quick update on my MK802 hacking..
I've created an easy-to-install image which is based on Linaro's 12.06 "internet appliance" base, and has then added my 3.0.36+ kernel (based on Amery's linux-allwinner repo), containing lots of extra drivers for things like bluetooth, USB drives, gamepads, webcams, and so forth.

You can download it here: linaro-alip-armhf.7z (204 M. kindly hosted by Miniand)

You'll need to use 7-zip to extract the image from the archive, then dd or imagewriter to splat the entire image onto an SD card. (eg. dd if=linaro-alip-armhf.img of=/dev/sdb conv=fsync)

This image should fit on a 4G card. If you have a larger card, splat it on, then eject and reinsert the disk, then resize the second partition and filesystem with parted, resize2fs, etc.

There's still no support for the Mali GPU, unfortunately; however see Compile X11 driver for A10 for info on where to start hacking..

MK802: Adding bluetooth, 1080p, custom kernels

A quick update on the MK802.

I've succeeded in getting it to boot a kernel I've compiled, which means I can add Bluetooth support, among other things, and you saw in my earlier post that I'd enabled 1920x1080p resolution via modifying evb.bin. Another user, Suzuke, was able to extend the memory to use closer to the full 1GB.

Unfortunately, this was only on the 3.0.8+ "lichee" kernel, not the latest branch of Amery's linux-allwinner. But it's a step closer.
We still really need to get onto the latest Linux kernels to fix some bugs, and get the Mali GPU working, hopefully.

In the meantime, my modified kernel is here, along with the config used to build it:
http://uploading.com/files/64f44dbd/mk802-kernel-3.0.8.7z/
(Also mirrored by Eric Betts at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/156593/mk802-kernel-3.0.8.7z )

The modified evb.bin: http://uploading.com/files/2m184d14/evb.bin/

Suzuke's modified uboot for more memory: http://uploading.com/files/2md8d968/u-boot.zip/

MK802 PC-onna-stick - first impressions and enabling 1080P

I received my MK802 in the mail today, and have been playing with in, both in Android and Ubuntu.

Initial impressions are that the firmware isn't quite there yet.. The Android build mostly worked well, but the resolution is locked at 1280x720, despite claims that it can do 1920x1080, and even up to 2160P!
It also seemed a bit slower than I was hoping, given the claims of being a 1.5 GHz Cortex A8 clone. (For comparison, my old Samsung Galaxy S was a 1 GHz A8, and it really flew! Whereas the MK802 couldn't even play Angry Birds smoothly..)

The Ubuntu port is very early days as well -- It only supports 512 Mb of the 1Gb of ram, and it's running in a simple framebuffer X mode, rather than using the Mali GPU properly. It was limited to 1280x720 as well :(
It's using the Android kernel rather than a proper Ubuntu one :/
However apart from that, it worked reasonably well as long as you didn't hit swap..


After all this, I read up on the mk802 forums, discovered the sunxi-tools for hacking around with the booting binaries, and messed around a bit, and managed a little world-first.. I managed to get 1920x1080 working at 50 Hz in Ubuntu, and it looks like that'll get ported into the Android version soon enough too. Hurrah!


I'm extremely dubious about claims the device can do up to 2160P.. It seems like it can barely do 1920x1080 at 50 Hz -- I tried 60 Hz, and there was a lot of tearing and glitches. But.. maybe with the Mali GPU being used it'd be OK?

Time will tell -- and for the moment, it's still a nifty device. It's amazing that they didn't bother putting Bluetooth into it though! You can put a bluetooth dongle on it, but then you need to use a hub too, so you can also plug in a mouse to let you configure the bluetooth pairing. :/